Many companies or other entities maintain fleets of vehicles for various reasons. For example, a taxi company may maintain fleets of vehicles for use as taxis. Maintenance of fleet vehicles can be expensive and time consuming. Furthermore, when a vehicle is being repaired or maintained, the vehicle cannot be used as part of the fleet. Thus, many companies that maintain a fleet of vehicles attempt to limit repairs of vehicles to planned maintenance to reduce lost time and/or costs.
Fleet vehicles are often run for many hours a day and may be subjected to extreme operating conditions. For example, users may leave the vehicles running for most of the day to maintain a comfortable temperature inside of the vehicle. Thus, a vehicle may run for ten to twelve hours per day or be subjected to other operating conditions that may shorten the life of the vehicle and/or components thereof.
The batteries of vehicles are generally replaced on a regular schedule to prevent failures in the field. If a battery fails in the field, the vehicle may be immobile and stuck at a particular location. Thus, a tow service or other entity may be called to start the vehicle and/or otherwise allow the vehicle to be moved. These types of calls can take hours and therefore can seriously impact a fleet that includes the vehicle. To address this possibility, some fleet management entities may regularly repair or replace batteries. Batteries for vehicles can be expensive, however, so unnecessarily replacing batteries can reduce profits of a company.
On the other hand, not replacing a battery of a vehicle can pose other problems. If a battery fails in the field, the vehicle may be stuck for a portion of the day or even for multiple days. At that point, costs of losing use of the vehicle, lost productivity of an operator of the vehicle, and out-of-pocket expenses to tow or otherwise repair the vehicle can be more expensive than an unnecessary battery replacement. As such, some fleet operators may regularly replace batteries that do not require replacement. This can negatively impact business profitability, but the costs of not doing so may be too great to offset this risk.